


start//end

by fineh



Category: Jane the Virgin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, No Amnesia Plot, Post-Season/Series 04, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-12-30 20:59:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18322007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fineh/pseuds/fineh
Summary: Jane thinks back to planners, time spent outlining days down to the very minute. If only she could go back.





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**Author's Note:**

> Most of this was written prior to the season coming out, so any coincidences are just that, coincidences. 
> 
> This is just me and my Jane/Jetra thoughts.

Jaw clenched ignoring the whispers of concern, Jane opens the door to Michael and Rafael. Rafael’s jaw mirrors her own, the tick in it telling her he’d rather be anywhere but here which is just fine by Jane because she’s not fond of him at the moment. The possibility of an engagement feels like a lifetime ago, not twelve sleepless hours, a cracked phone, and a resurrected husband. Behind her the whispers have come to a halt because it’s clear Jane is not, in fact, crazy and Michael stands on the doorstep looking from Xiomara to Alba and finally Rogelio who is the first one out of his chair, knocking Jane to the side to get to his best friend. Rogelio pauses only a second, a moment of uncertainty in a man who is certain about almost everything, before almost tackling Michael off the steps. The steadying hand Rafael lends is reluctant, disappearing the moment it’s clear they won’t go toppling off the steps. Wrapping him in a hug, Michael is airborne a couple of seconds, trying to navigate Rogelio’s excitement. The tick in Rafael’s jaw moves faster now.

Her mom saves Michael from Rogelio’s incessant questions and the itinerary he’s already typing into his phone. Michael accepts Xiomara’s gentle hug, locking eyes with Jane and Alba as he tentatively envelopes her, his blue eyes pained despite the hushed aside she’d had with him when they’d planned this visit. Jane has to look away from his silent question, one that no one has the answer to yet.

Will Xo survive this?

Her grandmother is the last to greet him, welcoming him back with a string of blessings and whispering to him in Spanish and Jane knows Michael understands, he’s always understood.

Silence is what Jane prefers from her phone. No calls from doctors or officials informing her about her husband’s sudden death. No empty apologies because they should have seen it coming, she should have seen it coming.

Phones deliver bad news and Jane wants no part of it unless it’s Lina with a text and an opportune exit from a reunion she suddenly doesn’t know how to handle. When her dad turns to her, crestfallen, torn between his best friend and his recently lost ambivalence towards Rafael the decision isn't hard. Jane seizes the three letters as a lifeline and escapes her dad’s torn face, Rafael’s sullenness, and Michael's uneasy shifting, back from the dead and unsure with how to handle the attention her family is giving him.

Closing the door behind her she breathes, phone clutched in sweaty hands, the bed catching her when she slumps into it ungracefully. The tiny chat bubble and accompanying _OMG!_ don’t seem as pressing in the safety of her bedroom and she debates swiping it away and reading whatever gossip rag Lina sent later. They text on and off and half of the time its screenshots of a stylist credit that makes Jane grin because Lina did it, left muggy Florida in the rearview mirror and achieved her dreams. Out of obligation, she clicks the link and promptly loses her breath all over again. Her heart beats furiously as she frantically scrolls through it, trying to figure out exactly what happened and if Petra is okay.

Fear gives way to anger because what the fuck Petra? She silently apologizes and adds a couple of Hail Mary’s onto her prayers later, and waits for Petra to pick up the phone.

Petra answers, she sounds like hell and it’s almost enough for Jane to forget her initial anger and ask if she’s okay.

Almost.

“Why the hell didn’t you call me?”

“Jane…”

“You almost died and I don’t even get a heads up?” Jane knows her anger isn’t from being out of the loop. It’s about how her heart had lunged into her throat when she read the headline, eyesight blurring, frantically searching for any scrap of information that would indicate Petra survived the attack.

Jane blinks furiously through Petra’s assurances that she’s _fine_ (even though she doesn’t sound fine and that’s disturbing enough) and that it isn’t a big deal because dammit it is a big deal. Jane’s already lost someone, even if it was fake, and adding Petra to that list is something she can’t imagine. Petra’s life is a big deal and it’s time she starts acting like it.

“I’m going over there.” Jane decides, searching for her keys and purse, she needs to see for herself Petra is fine.

“No,” Petra says firmly, the exhaustion disappearing immediately. “I’m fine Jane.”

“Is it JR, is she hurt?”

Petra exhales deeply and Jane knows there’s something else Petra isn’t telling her. “I--I just need some time alone. Jane, please.”

Jane drops her purse and keys but not without a reminder.

“Brunch, this Saturday.”

Petra murmurs an agreement and Jane hangs up, uneasy and unable to do anything about it. Jane thinks back to planners, time spent outlining days down to the very minute. If only she could go back.

Gripping her phone tight Jane walks back into the stilted atmosphere.

* * *

 

It blows up quicker than she would have thought, Rafael overhears Michael quietly ask her to get coffee and stomps off before Jane can say anything. It doesn’t matter that Michael isn’t trying to get her back. Not this timid, unsure Michael who flinches almost imperceptibly every time someone touches him. This Michael is looking for a familiar face in a world that has moved on in the four years he was gone. But Rafael doesn’t care, he gives her the silent treatment, ignoring all of her attempts to explain.

Instead, he’d stalked off, minimally avoiding shoulder checking her when she stopped at his apartment to drop off Mateo and attempt one final time to explain, to figure out where they stand because Michael’s return doesn’t have to change everything. Maybe it’s foolish to expect him to understand the need to be there for her best friend, to know where he’s been the past four years.

Jane had reached out only to get rebuffed.

One of these days, she was going to stop reaching out. It’s unclear what happens after that, what happens after she gives up?

Perhaps that’s why she keeps reaching.

“Jane, are you okay?” Across from her sits the man she’s thought about every day for the past four years, each thought with varying degrees of pain, of happiness. He’s different, the hair, the beard, the clothes, but his eyes remain the same, blue and concerned.

“I’m okay, just thinking about Rafael.”

Jane is struck by just how different this is, sitting across from Michael, talking about Rafael. No competition, no jumping to insult each other, or fighting over wobbly tables.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think he’d get so upset.” Jane has nothing to offer to make him feel better because of all the things that have changed, Rafael’s insecurities aren’t one of them.

“Forget about him,” this isn’t about Rafael, it’s about Michael, that’s why she’s here. ”How are you?” It’s a safer question, one that isn’t throwing them into the minefield that is his disappearance and sudden reappearance.

“I’m doing okay, still adjusting to everything. Dennis is helping me out.” Dennis never did get back together with his ex, so Michael’s been staying with him. It’s an alternative, not a great one but it’s the only one that’s presented itself at the moment. “We’re going to the Marbella tomorrow He thinks that what happened to Petra might be connected to what happened to me.” Jane thinks that’s how Petra would have phrased it too, brushing off the whole death thing with a shrug and a carefully crafted sentence.

“So you can’t talk about it?” Jane knows how this goes, she was the wife of a cop, she possibly still is the wife of a cop.

“No, Jane, I can’t. I’m sorry.” He runs a hand through his curly hair. “But you have to believe me, I didn’t leave by choice, there wasn’t a crime lord big enough to tear me away from you and Mateo. You know that, right?”

“Michael,” she reaches across the table, she doesn’t touch him, because he’s uneasy and she doesn’t know why, and she’s unsure if she ever will. “I know that, of course, I know that. It doesn’t make these past four years any less painful, not for me, or for you I’m sure. But it’s something that was out of our control.

“What matters Michael, is that you came back and that you’re alive. No matter what happens, I want you to know, that I’m happy that you’re alive.”

Michael’s hand twitches where it lies next to Jane’s, and for that moment, it’s enough.

* * *

 

“Care to tell me exactly what the hell Dennis, and your husband, who is supposed to be dead, are currently doing in my hotel and why I shouldn’t kick them out?” Petra hisses. Petra’s never done well with secrets or cops, or secrets involving cops and her hotel, and Jane has just provided both.

Jane smiles as best she can at one of the PTA members she was pretending to listen to, excusing herself while Petra continues to rant on the other end, all she was doing was cursing Rafael in her head anyway.

Settling into a shaded picnic table, she traces the rings in the wood. “It’s not like you can kick them out.” Jane shrugs at herself, trying and failing to not be logical about the situation, “They’re cops.” One of them at least, she’s unsure where Michael currently stands.

“Jane,” Petra grinds her teeth and the sound is enough for Jane to tell the truth.

“It’s a long story.” A somewhat long story.

“One that ends with me kicking his ass.”

Jane’s phone dings, Michael’s sent her a picture, captioned _she growled at me._ It’s Petra, grainy, suspicious, scowl firmly in place, deep and directed at Michael. Jane and Michael have reestablished a tentative friendship and apparently, they’re close enough for him to ask her to call Petra off. Close enough for him to know Petra will listen to her.

“Stop glaring at him.”

“I’m not.”

Jane looks at the picture again, touched at Petra’s anger on her behalf. “You are.”

“I should kick his ass,” Petra mutters, scowl firmly in place.

“Please don’t,” Jane learned from their scuffle in the ball pit that Petra is surprisingly scrappy.

Someone calls Petra’s name in the background. “Brunch,” is the last word Petra growls to her before hanging up.

Jane’s phone vibrates again, _she’s gone, thanks._

Sighing, Jane pockets her phone, unsure of when exactly this became her life.

* * *

 

She asks herself the same thing as Petra glares holes at the top of Michael’s head before turning to Jane for the tenth time and asking why he’s there.

“He has no other family,” None that know he’s alive anyway, “And I didn’t want to leave him alone.” She also hadn’t wanted to face Petra alone but she wasn’t going to admit Petra still scared her sometimes.

“Are you together again?” Jane’s fork clatters loudly on the plate, Petra’s bluntness is something she appreciates on most days, today is not one of them.

“No.” Michael is the one who answers finally looking up from the fruit he’s been pushing around his plate for the past half hour. “We’re not. Hard to be with someone when there’s still ghosts hanging around.”

“I know what you mean.” Petra stares at him, mouth tipping down in recognition, and a sadness Jane can’t pinpoint but can see reflected in the way Michael holds himself, slumped shoulders and an unwillingness to make eye contact. Jane struggles to decide who to focus her attention on because these dejected people have meant different things to her at different points in her life.

The kids rejoin them at the table before Jane can question either one of them. They’ve burned off the spoonfuls of oatmeal Petra and mostly Jane had talked them into eating and are now fully awake and reaching across the table grabbing whatever is in reach.

“Mom, is Jane coming today?” Anna asks as Petra moves the syrup closer to her daughter, eliminating the footprint that was for sure about to appear on the chair when Anna did what she always did and refused to ask for help.

Michael looks quizzically over at her because technically, there is a Jane already seated at the table. They’d talked about Petra, some offhand remarks, a couple of disbelieving headshakes from Michael at the fact that they’re friends. Petra Solano and Jane Villanueva are friends and a couple of steps away from being co-parents. But in the three hours they’d spent together, Jane had never brought JR up, hadn’t really wanted to.

When Petra had shown up with just the girls Jane hadn’t asked because JR had only managed to join them a handful of times at brunch, she spent most Saturdays with her mom and no one could begrudge her that.

But the panicked look Petra tosses in Jane’s direction isn’t the brush off Jane was expecting.

“Sweetie, we talked about it, JR isn’t going to be around anymore. She’s busy.” Petra smoothes her daughter’s concern away with apparent ease but something is off.

Michael doesn’t react at the pronoun, just smiles at Petra, but Jane knows he’s definitely going to grill her on it later because four years with the Villanueva's turned him into a gossip and it looks like that’s remained the same.

“Busy?” JR might flake on some things (like citizenship parties for abuelas but Jane can’t blame her) but it’s not like her to flake on Petra. Especially not after a near death experience. “She’s busy?”

“Jane.” The syllable is enough for her to bite her tongue but the forceful stabbing of a strawberry communicates they will be discussing this as soon as Rafael picks the kids up later. Petra’s response is a forceful crunch.

Neither of them notices Michael’s keen interest in their wordless exchange.

* * *

 

“Explain.” Petra turns on her the moment the door to her new suite closes behind Rafael.

“ _You_ need to explain.”

“I’m not the one who had a husband magically reappear!”

“No, you're just the one with a missing girlfriend.”

Petra whirls around, eyes furious, whether it’s at Jane or JR’s absence, or herself, Jane doesn’t know.

They’re at a standstill, the last one had led to a very public ‘I love you’ in the lobby.

Petra is the one to break first, she sighs deeply, turning to face Jane, eyes softening to a level Jane still isn’t used to seeing. “Are you okay, Jane?”

“I--” The lie is on the tip of her tongue, repeated for the past week in hopes of keeping away all the pity and questions from her family.

“If you tell me you’re okay and you’re not I’m kicking you out.” Petra threatens but the wobbly smile gives her away.

“If you tell me you’re okay and you’re not I’m sitting on you until you are.”

“I’m not okay,” Petra says after a moment.

“Neither am I.” Jane finally admits it out loud. She doubts that she’s actually admitted it, ever.

“Drink?”

“Please.”

As Petra moves further into her new suite, Jane considers getting wasted, adding “dead husband comes back” to her drunk meter, and avoiding this talk all together because she’s so tired of talking. For once she wants to not talk about it. She’s talked about it with her mom, dad, and grandmother, and it’s yet to solve anything. There isn’t anything for her to grab onto this time, unlike with her mother’s cancer diagnosis. There she could focus on treatments, prevention, insurance, and control and contain the situation.

There isn’t a Google search on Earth that will give her any help with her current predicament (she knows, she searched). Alcohol will at least provide a temporary solution.

Petra comes back with two glasses, each with a reasonable amount of wine in them and it’s only the reminder that tomorrow is Sunday and she promised to Abuela to attend Mass with her that stops Jane from getting up and dumping the rest of the bottle into her glass.

“How the hell is he alive?”  

“I don’t know.” She doesn't have an official explanation and none of the ones she's come up with in her head are of any use.

“You don’t--,” Petra takes a deep breath, exhales, then takes another. “Wow, okay, is there a reason he can’t tell you or...”

“It’s an ongoing investigation.”

“But he’s not a cop! Or is he?”

“It’s unclear,” Jane watches Petra bite her tongue, doing her best to school her features and Jane hates feeling like a naive schoolgirl especially since she’s anything but. “It doesn’t matter, he’s Michael, and he’s back, and for now, that’s enough.”

It has to be.

“I can’t imagine Rafael is happy about this.”

Jane thinks back to his ticking jaw.

“No, he’s not.”

“Don’t let him bully you into anything Jane.”

“I’m not.” She’s already stood her ground once, she’ll do it again. She’s no longer a pregnant virgin trying to cling onto the picture perfect family she’d never had.

“Are you still together?”

“Yeah,” the ‘for now’ hangs silently between them, filling the room with an uncomfortable truth Jane isn’t willing to acknowledge. “We haven’t had the opportunity to talk about anything. He’s been avoiding me.” She knows why, knows that he knows she knows, but it isn’t a conversation she’s willing to have, if only because it’ll be the end of their relationship.

Petra hums but doesn’t comment any further, studiously avoiding eye contact and it’s time for Jane to ask about JR because last she heard they were moving in together, which doesn’t explain why JR is nowhere to be found.

“Petra, why aren’t you okay?” Petra’s composure disappears, the indifference gone, and it’s replaced with an exhaustion Jane has never seen before.

“I fucked up Jane. I fucked up real bad.”

Jane is no longer sure she wants to hear this because it’s bound to be bad. Petra has a laundry list of things she's done but she's never looked this distraught, which worries Jane because Petra tends to be lax on things she shouldn't be. If Petra says it's bad, it usually is. But Petra's changed so, “It can’t be that bad.”

“I killed Anezka.”

Wow, that is bad. That surpasses bad and goes all the way to downright horrible and a mortal sin. Sure in her head, years ago, in all her anger and resentment at Petra, she might have thought her capable of it, but she'd dismissed it because even then she'd never considered Petra to be a murderer.  

“I-I don’t know what you want me to say.” It isn’t hard to imagine exactly why JR left, it's pretty hard to condone murder.

“That’s the thing, Jane, I don’t think there is anything you can say.”

“How?” Jane needs to know.

“How what?”

“How could you do that to your sister? How could you lie to us? To JR?”

“I didn’t have a choice, Jane!”

“There’s always a choice Petra.”

“Except there wasn’t!” Petra yells, “I didn’t have a choice in the fucked up shit my sister did to me,” Petra pauses, “and when she threatened my girls, I definitely didn’t have a choice.”

“You didn’t have to kill her!” Petra might be done yelling but Jane is not.

“I wasn’t trying to kill her, she was trying to kill me. I pushed her, and the balcony was loose because that what she and my mother had planned. I just wanted to scare her, I didn’t know the balcony was loose.” Petra buries her head in her hands, “I didn't know the balcony was loose.”

“I can’t do this.” Getting up she puts some space between them, her head feels like it's about to explode. “I really can't do this.”

“You’re not the one that has almost been killed twice in a year! They were going to throw me into prison for something that Anezka started, something that would have been resolved if you had minded your own business and let Rafael do what was needed with Katherine Cortez.”

“So now it’s my fault?” The accusation Petra throws at her leaves her reeling. “That’s super rich.”

“That's my point, Jane! It’s no one’s fault, it’s just a series of unfortunate events that led us here.”

“You didn’t have to lie.”

“I did.”

“You didn’t.”

“JR was trying to put me in jail, they were blackmailing her and her mother, she would have turned me in in a heartbeat, if she'd known the truth and I think you would have too.”

“Can you blame us?”

“I don’t know Jane! I just don’t know anymore.” Catching herself Petra closes her eyes, fingers pinching the bridge of her nose as she takes deep breaths and struggles not to cry. “I just know I didn’t want to go to prison and leave my daughters alone. So everything after that was simple, to lie, to fight to stay out of prison over something that was a freak accident.”

Jane thinks about the text, about losing Petra to some random person with a grudge and a gun, and it’s enough. Jane sits next to her, pressing her shoulder to hers, silently letting her know she's there.

“I wouldn't have turned you in.”

“Jane,” Petra’s voice is full of disbelief.

“I mean,” Jane thinks back to what she told her mother on the porch years ago, and god she’s changed so much since then. “I wouldn’t have helped you bury the body but I wouldn’t have turned you in.”

“Thanks.” Petra looks like she doesn't believe her but she accepts it nonetheless.

“Now what, are you still going to jail?”

“No, they can’t arrest me for that. Um, JR turned herself into the DA. She was disbarred and the case was dismissed with prejudice.”

“Wow,” Jane breathes, unable to imagine the courage it must have taken her to confess to the DA. “she really loved you.”

Petra buries her face into her hands, “Fuck, she really did. She looked so betrayed Jane, like I was a complete stranger, and I think,” Petra swallows harshly, “I think she was afraid of me. I don’t know how to fix it.”

“Can you fix it?” Jane isn’t sure you can come back from that. Her mom or dad might have helpful suggestions, but she doesn't.

“I want to fix it, I love her Jane.” They sit in silence, staring at the bottom of their empty glasses. “Do you think she’ll come back?” Petra asks, voice small and unsure.

“Do _you_ think she’ll come back?”

“I hope she will.”

Jane pulls Petra into a hug, her warm body shaking ever so slightly beneath her, and thinks back to the happy, smiling Petra she’d been seeing more often. “I hope so too.”

* * *

 

"Are you done running?”

Rafael freezes where he stands, about to disappear down her porch steps, barely waiting to see if Mateo made it inside the house safely.

“I don’t want to talk Jane.”

“I don’t care,” She’s done waiting around for him, hoping he’ll come around. “You’ve had two weeks of avoiding me. You left all the house stuff to me, I had to make all the calls, fight to get our money back, something that you, a realtor, should have been able to handle.”

“I don’t see the problem,” Rafael scoffs, “now you can get your dream house with Michael.”

“Are you serious Rafael?” Closing the door, she steps forward, “We’re still together. I haven’t run off with Michael, I’m here and fighting for our relationship, a relationship you abandoned the moment Michael showed up.”

“I don’t want to be your second choice!”

Rafael stands before her, his fear of failure preventing him from seeing exactly what Jane is offering. She’s so sick of offering.

“I wasn’t holding out for Michael, not the way you were always holding out for me, or Petra, or whoever was emotionally unavailable at the moment. You’re acting like I knew he was alive, like this is all my fault or that we planned this. I didn’t want to spend the last four years as a widow Rafael. And the fact that you’re making his reappearance about you is unbelievable, Michael was traumatized, anyone with eyes can see it.”

“It’s not about me! It’s about Mateo, did you even think about Mateo?”

“Did you even think about Mateo before you went to see Rose, before you misled me?” Rafael looks away, watches the heat rise up from the Miami sidewalk and doesn’t answer. “That’s what I thought.” She can’t keep doing this, defending her choices to Rafael, not when he continues making decisions with no regard for her or Mateo. Taking a deep breath, Jane fortifies herself, “I also think we’re over.”

That gets his attention. “Jane--”

“No!” She holds a hand out, halting his progress toward her,  “I’ve been trying for weeks! It shouldn’t be this hard.” Voice breaking, she can’t stop her thoughts from straying to Michael, and she hates it. “I know it isn’t this hard.”

Rafael must sense it too because he steps back, “Fine.”

He’s gone, the smell of burnt rubber filling the air, Jane watches him speed off knowing the first change of many has just occurred.

**Author's Note:**

> find me here on [tumblr](http://finehs.tumblr.com)


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